


Little Secrets

by nerdzeword



Series: Little Miracles [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, No Beta, We Die Like Men, a very depressed nicky, and a lot of pining, featuring mountain man erik, some helpful thirteen year olds, twinyards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 21:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21363124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdzeword/pseuds/nerdzeword
Summary: Nicky had spent his entire life hiding who he was. You would think it would be easier to finally tell people.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Aaron Minyard, Nicky Hemmick & Andrew Minyard, Nicky Hemmick/Erik Klose
Series: Little Miracles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540117
Comments: 5
Kudos: 118





	Little Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of spin off of my fic Little Miracles, so you can probably read it by itself, but a couple of things will more sense if you read that one first.

Nicky Hemmick had really known his extended family. Sure, he saw Aaron and Tilda every two years when Luther would buy tickets to fly out to South Carolina for the holidays. But had always come to Columbia, never the way around.

So the fact that the Hemmicks were not only flying out to California, but flying out to California in the middle of August, was a bit baffling. From what he gathered listening to his parents talk- they still weren't saying anything to him directly- his Aunt Tilda had been sent to jail. to do drugs and child abuse. His dad was apparently trying to get custody of Aaron, but the fact that he hadn't known his sister was in jail for six months was making it slow progress. 

"I'm his Uncle! Flesh and blood! He should be with his family! Not with this Officer Higgins person." His father ranted to his mother yet again. Nicky idly hoped that Aaron didn't end up with them. He had always liked Aaron. If Aaron was happy, he should be able to stay where he was.

Apparently that was another thing his father had a problem with.

"He's Twelve! How happy could he possibly be with a complete stranger? What's this, 'Not interested in switching homes at this time' and 'more than welcome to come visit.' It's garbage is what it is. He doesn't know what he wants." Nicky personally thought that Aaron probably had a fairly good idea as to what he wanted, seeing as he had never even tried reaching out to the Hemmicks in the last six months either.

They pulled up to the house and stepped out of the cab. It was different than Nicky had imagined it would be. Calmer. 

The door was answered by a short blonde boy that Nicky immediately recognized as his cousin. Not that it's a task, he had barely changed at all in the last year and a half.

"Come in." He said, stepping aside to let them pass. There was something different about the way he moved than Nicky remembers, but he can't quite put his finger on it. They hear voices coming from the other room before another Aaron appears in the doorway. If the first boy looked similar to Nicky's memory of Aaron, the second boy was identical. 

"What's this?" Nicky could tell that Luther was getting mad, thinking that this was all some great joke at his expense. From the look in the first boy's eyes, he thought it actually might be. Nicky couldn't say he was surprised.

"Hello!" A tall black man greeted them in the doorway. That must be Officer Higgins. He looked nice. Nicky was taken aback by a wave of jealousy. He bet Officer Higgins wouldn't care if he was gay. 

"I see you've met Andrew. Come on in, it'll be awhile before dinner, but can I you anything to drink?" 

"Did you learn the secret to cloning?" He asked his cousin(s?) As soon as the adults were out of earshot. 

"No. I'm him, but from the future." Andrew replied immediately. Nicky raised an eyebrow at them.

"How far in the future? Because I would think that if you were going to go back in time, you would do so when you weren't in the middle of puberty." The two exchanged a look.

"Very well, we're twins. And I don't care how much you know about travel. You're not splitting us up again." Andrew stabbed a finger at Nicky fiercely. It would have been hilarious on anyone else, but Nicky somehow had the feeling that Andrew was by far the most dangerous person in the house. 

"Personally, I'd rather live anywhere else but with my parents, so you won't hear any complaints from me." Andrew nodded curtly as Aaron sized him up.

"Do you play Exy?"

By the time they left Oakland, Nicky had a lot to think about. He had spent a large portion of his time there playing neighborhood Exy and coaching the boys on how to act as each other, seeing as he was apparently one of the few people who had no trouble telling them apart in the first place. 

They had given him a lot to think about, especially Andrew, who after hearing about the 'camp' he went to the year before immediately walked out of the room. Only to return ten minutes later with a printed article in hand. 

"That's the most bullshit thing I've ever heard, and this explains why. Being gay isn't some sort of  _ disease.  _ Adults are so  _ stupid _ . And if they try to you go back to that camp again, just leave." Nicky had found Andrew's entire perspective completely wild. He couldn't just  _ leave _ . He'd told Andrew so. 

"Why not?"

"Where would I even go?"

"You could come here." Aaron supplied. "You could share our room. We'll get bunk beds!" Andrew nodded an affirmative, which caught Nicky a bit off guard, because he'd thought that Andrew only tolerated him at best.

"Alright. If they try again, I'll move in with you." It made Nicky think though. He would be going to Germany for an exchange at the start of the new semester. He was going to be escaping, in a way. And maybe it would only be for a year, but, if he liked it, who said he had to leave?

And even if he didn't like it, there were so many other he could visit. He could see where his mom was from in Mexico. He could go to Spain or South America. Somehow it had never occurred to him that he wasn't trapped in South Carolina. 

Nicky smiled to himself as he stared out the window of the plane, Andrew's article tucked safely in his pocket, the twins' emails scrawled across the top. He had a family who wanted him, even the gay parts, and a future he was only just beginning to see forming. For the first time in years, Nicky thought he might be alright.

Had asked him what his goals for his year in Germany were, he would have said something about learning the language, and getting better grades. He would not have said anything about falling in head over heels in with his homestay brother. His very openly gay homestay brother. 

It was like a match made in heaven, except Nicky had no idea how to even talk about his infatuation. Being gay had always been such a bad thing, a secret thing, that he had no idea how to even try and address his feelings, even to himself. 

He'd known he was gay since he was twelve, in that vague sort of way that all twelve year olds viewed sexuality. He had come to the conclusion that he liked boys, he thought they were pretty, and he would like to marry his friend Louis one day. 

He had been perfectly content with being gay until shortly after his thirteenth birthday, when his father had made some comment about the neighbor probably being gay and Nicky had made the mistake of asking what was so wrong about being gay, earning him a lecture that he would hear often enough to memorize in the coming years.

He had tried for years to just ignore it and hope it went away. But by the time he was fifteen, he had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to go away, and there was no point in trying to lie to himself anymore. He decided that as long as he it a secret, he would be fine, and he could come out to his parents when he felt like they might actually understand. 

That plan lasted a whole three months, until someone from his dad’s congregation saw him kissing Marcus from his Stats class. 

Nicky had thought that their reactions hadn’t been too bad at first. Sure, his parents had been upset, but they had understood. Or he had thought they understood. He had thought they understood all the way up until they shipped him off to a conversion camp at the start of the summer holidays the summer before his junior year. 

Erik was beautiful. He was one of those guys you would expect to be a jock, with how muscular he was, but Nicky had learned that all of the muscle actually came from the long hours he would spend every weekend rock climbing or hiking or bike riding. 

Nicky hated all of those things. He had grown up in a suburban neighborhood with parents who were too busy posturing for the masses to bother with camping or other outdoorsy stuff. The first time he went on a hike with Erik (because of course he was going to go hiking with a hot guy, he was gay, not stupid) he thought he was going to die from the burning in his legs. And yet… whenever Erik asked, Nicky would inevitably agree to join on whatever outrageous trip he was going on that week. Which was how he found himself not only beefing up himself, but also getting to know his- very hot- homestay brother far better than he had ever expected.

As per the usual, he mentioned his problem to his cousins in one of his emails. Andrew’s response of ‘just tell him you like him dumbass.’ was predictably useless, but Aaron’s slightly more reserved method of attack had some merits. After some debate however, it was eventually written off as useless as well. 

AMinyard: Andrew’s right though, He’s never going to make a move on you though if he doesn’t know you’re gay and into him.

UltimateTwin: Ha.

Nickyslick: How on earth am I supposed to tell my homestay brother, ‘oh hey, by the way, I’m super gay and also really into you, we should go out sometime.’

UltimateTwin: Just like that.

NickySlick: It just occurred to me, is it weird that he’s my homestay brother? Is that like, incestuous?

AMinyard: The longer you think about it instead of acting on it, the weirder it’s going to get.

NickySlick: UGH Why is this so harddddddd

UltimateTwin: Ha.

AMinyard: Really Andrew?

Really, Nicky should have known better than to ask his thirteen year old cousins for dating advice, he was fairly certain they had some sort of weird twinny dating pact, and had never so much as kissed a girl either of them. As it turned out, Andrew’s method would be the correct one, though not by any choice of Nicky’s.

Erik Klose had always known who he was. He had come out as gay to his family at the tender age of seven, to much encouragement and acceptance, and hadn’t really looked back since. Being gay was such a fundamental part of who he was, that Erik had never really felt the need to use it as an introduction, always as an afterthought. Maybe it was because of this that he was often mistaken for being straight, to which he would have to politely correct the person he was speaking to before carrying on conversation.

It could also have been because of his extreme love of everything outdoors. It was a love that he’d been cultivating since he was a small boy, starting with short hiking trips, and culminating in week long backpacking trips to the French Alps, where he would spend days hiking and rock climbing with several of his more active friends. In short, Erik had a good life. 

To some extent, he had always been aware that others were not quite as accepting as his own family, but all of those people’s experiences were so far from his own, that the inequality had never quite sunk in. Not until the day he met Nicky Hemmick. 

When they first learned about Nicky, he was just another name on a page. They had received several different candidates for the exchange program, in to find the best fit for their family. 

Nicky hadn’t been their first choice. 

The pages listed basic information about the candidates. Name. Age. Interests. Grades. Religious affiliation. Etc. Nicholas Esteban Hemmick had been so different from their family in every way. 

He was a year younger than Erik, who had already graduated high school, and was working his way up into the ranks of his surprisingly pleasant office job, taking night classes on the side. He liked to play video games, and play Exy with his cousins; a far cry from any of Erik’s family members, whose idea of a good time was that of the outdoor variety. He had grades on the low side of average, and was apparently a very devout Southern Baptist Christian, which was a big difference from Erik’s own family’s more agnostic beliefs. 

The Klose family had decided that Nicky Hemmick would probably be far more comfortable in a home that wasn’t theirs. 

It a week before the program was set to start when they got the call saying that something had happened and the boy that had originally been planning on staying with them, had gotten himself arrested and would they mind taking a different boy whose host family had dropped from the program at the last minute? They had said yes of course, which was how Erik had found himself, for one of the first times in his life, staring into the deep brown eyes of a beautiful boy, and wanting to introduce himself with ‘Hi I’m Erik and I’m very gay.’

Nicky was soft. That’s what had drawn Erik to him the most. If someone had ever asked him, his answer would be his softness. He wasn’t soft in the sense that he was quiet, (because being American, and being Nicky, no one could ever have mistaken him for being quiet.) so much as he was soft in the way a pillow was soft right after you fluffed it, or the way a bruise was tender. 

Someone had hurt Nicky far more than any seventeen year old should ever have been hurt, and Nicky had come out the other side hurt, but still willing to help everyone and everything in any way possible. He had a sort of innate kindness to him, to the point where Erik was sure that had anyone asked it of him, he would give up every dream he’d ever had just to help. And the more Erik learned about Nicky, the more he began to love that about him. 

Nicky was also the prettiest boy he had ever seen. And Erik had many. He was as tall as Erik, with dark curls that framed his face, and dark eyes that had seen too much already. His copper skin sometimes glowed gold in the sunlight and he had a 1000 watt smile that Erik lived to see. He was perfect, and he was… probably not gay. 

Was there anything worse than falling head over heels for new roommate? Erik hadn’t thought so until his younger sister Marta had fixed him with a look over breakfast one morning that said that she knew exactly what was going through his head as he watched Nicky try and his homework over a bowl of cereal. 

“Really Erik?” She had commented later that night.

“What?”

“You know what. You have the weirdest taste.” That was true. The last time Erik had felt anywhere close to this infatuated was when he was crushing on this boy in his stats class in year 10. He’d had an excellent collection of vintage vinyl, and a charming smile. Year 10 Erik had low standards. 

“So. What’s your point?”

“ Maybe if you actually do something about it this time, I won’t have to hear you bitch when nothing happens.” 

“I’m not going to say anything to him, that would be weird, and besides, he-

“Oh he’s definitely gay too.”

“How on earth would you know that?” Marta shrugged. 

“He left his up on the family computer. He was talking to his cousins about it, you know the ones he’s like weirdly close to?” Erik felt his heart rate speed up. He had a chance. Granted, there was no saying that Nicky was in any way interested in him, but he could definitely get closer to him and find out right?

“Is it weird?”

“I mean we aren’t that close to our cousins.”

“We don’t even have cousins. Both of our parents were only children.” 

“I still think it’s weird.”

It only took Erik a month to convince Nicky to come on a hike with him. Soon, it was routine. It didn’t matter where he went or what he did, Nicky would struggle and complain, but would follow along anyway. Erik liked to think it was progress. It was one of these routine hikes that finally prompted Erik to instigate an intervention. 

It wasn’t a long hike, nor a particularly hard one. Hikes in around Stuttgart were far closer to leisurely walks than to actual hikes, to Erik’s constant disappointment. It still turned out to be a lot more than Nicky was used to. 

“You’d think you’d never have been hiking before.” Erik said in slow German. He could speak just fine, but the entire family had latched onto teaching Nicky to speak fluent German with a gusto only matched by Nicky’s eagerness to learn. 

“I haven’t.” Nicky replied. Well, what he actually said was “Not.” but Erik was very good at interpreting Nicky’s grammatical mishaps. Erik stopped walking and stared at him. 

“This is your first time?” 

“Ja.” 

“How?” Nicky opened his mouth to speak, but closed it after a moment. When he did speak, it was in English. 

“My family isn’t really a big fan of doing things together, or doing things outdoors, or doing things that might reflect badly on my parents in any way.”

“Like what?” Erik asked softly in the same language. Nicky laughed humorlessly.

“Like being gay for starters.” Erik stared at him for a moment, suddenly understanding all at once what had made Nicky so soft. He found himself overcome with a protective rage. Nicky deserved better than to be ridiculed and ostracized for being who he was. He deserved to know exactly how special he was, and how much he meant to Erik. He could tell from one glance however that Nicky wasn’t ready to hear any of that yet. So he forced himself to calm down.

“Have you been to a proper German pub yet?”

As it happened, no one gave a shit about underage drinking laws in Germany, and Nicky, who had never actually drank anything more than a glass of stolen chardonnay at one of his parent’s parties, was a lightweight. 

Nicky didn’t actually remember anything about the night itself, much to everyone who had been there’s amusement, but he had gotten a brief and slightly apologetic rundown of the events from Erik.

It happened like this:

Nicky had been fine for the first beer. He had even been alright, if a bit wobbly, for his second. By the third shot and fourth beer however, Nicky had been struggling to stand. He had leaned on Erik’s side and watched the rest of the people in the pub with a fascination that only a very drunk person could possess. Erik, for his part, dutifully hadn’t left his side, like the love struck fool he was. And they may have stayed that way all night, had Marta not dragged Nicky to what passed as a dance floor next to the crowded bar. 

Marta later refused to tell Nicky what she had told him on the dance floor, and Erik hadn’t heard their conversation, but whatever it was had worked. When he had gotten back to the table where Erik was, he had downed an entire pint in one go, and started speaking to Erik in rapid fire Spanish. Erik had been very confused and asked Nicky to repeat himself. Slower. And in German, or even English. 

Erik couldn’t be sure that what Nicky had repeated in English was exactly what he had said in Spanish, but he assumed it was at least somewhat close.

“I really really like you, and Marta said I should tell you or- anyway, I like you and would very much like to date you. Okay bye.” He had then run to the bathroom, where he had proceeded to puke his guts out for the next half hour while Erik tried to get him to come out, or at least open the door so he could help. 

When Nicky finally did come out, he looked a bit worse for wear. His clothes were rumpled and slightly stained, and his hair was curlier than usual.

“Lets get you home, Ja?” Erik said, taking his hand and leading him back to the entrance. Nicky could only nod. As they walked back, Erik had Nicky’s hand, partially to keep him from falling over, and partly because he wanted to. 

“Yes.” He finally spoke back up again when they neared the house.

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll date you.” Nicky stopped walking. 

“Really? But I just-”

“I should have been watching how much you drank better. It’s fine. Besides, you should have seen what I looked like the first time I went out. Trust me, this is nothing.”

“But-”

“Go to bed, sleep it off if it makes you feel better, but I’ll tell you the same thing in the morning.” Erik had repeated the same thing in the morning, when explaining to Nicky what happened the night before. Then again over their very late breakfast when Nicky had asked him again if he was sure. The third time he asked, while they were watching a movie in the living room, Erik hadn’t even bothered answering. Just kissed him.

It was the flash of the camera that eventually pulled them out of it, and Erik had spent a solid minute in a staredown with Marta. Nicky finally pulled them out of it by asking her for a copy of the photo. 

NickySlick: hellyes.jpg

AMinyard: Ew.

UltimateTwin: Ew.

UltimateTwin: You took my advice didn’t you?

NickySlick: …

UltimateTwin: Ha! You owe me two weeks of chores Aaron

AMinyard: Damn it Nicky

  
  



End file.
